An Interview with Sterkarm author Susan Price: Part I

The Sterkarm Handshake

 

 How did you get the idea for the Sterkarms?

 I had no idea of writing anything remotely like it. Then I went on a walking holiday in the Scottish Borders. The guides kept saying, 'This is an old Reiver's trail,' or pointing to a tower and saying, 'That's an old Reiver's tower.' I was intrigued and bought George MacDonald Fraser's book, THE STEEL BONNETS, read it, and was absolutely fascinated. I got that feeling - 'I want to write about these people!' 

The obvious thing was to write an historical novel, set in the reivers' time, but my gut-feeling said no to that. I felt that the present day had to be in the book too.

So I played about with various ways of transferring characters from one time to another - the knock on the head and waking up in another century, the mystical time-slip, the dream. None of these ideas satisfied me. They all seemed too fussy, and all would involve the present-day character wondering, 'How do I come to be here?' and trying to hide the fact that they came from another time. 

I wanted something much more straight-forward. I came up with the time-machine when I read, in the newspapers, an account of a scientific tiff. One group of scientists was saying that it would be possible to build a real, working time-machine. Another group was saying cobblers to that.

The time-machine appealed to me as a solution of my problem because it was in plain view, so to speak. There was no need to evoke supernatural or extra-sensory powers of any kind. The 21st Century characters would accept it naturally as technology and use it like a bus. The 16th Century characters would accept it - because it was operating right in front of their eyes - but would understand it differently. 

I started thinking: Who would put up the billions needed to develop a working time-machine? Not Governments, not these days. It would be Business, the multi-nationals. Why would they do it? For profit, of course, the only reason they do anything.

Where would their profit come from? At first I thought of opening the past up as a sort of holiday theme-park, but soon concluded that there wouldn't be enough money in that. Then it occurred to me that we are running out of fossil-fuel, and there's hardly a source of food that we haven't poisoned. But back in the 16th century, there was untouched coal, untouched gas and oil, and every crop grown and every animal butchered was one hundred per cent organic. If that could be brought back to the present, the Company that did it could charge their own price. 

As soon as I thought of this, the light-bulb above my head lit up and I knew I would write the book.

I started thinking about the characters, and wondering, what would the Sterkarms make of the 21st Century people, with their strange clothes and their strange gadgets? When I imagined the round mouth of the Time Tube opening on a hillside, it reminded me of the border legends of the Elves who live under the hill. The Sterkarms, I thought, would understand the 21st Century people as Elves, and the Time Tube as a gate into Elf-Land. Another light-bulb lit up. I was definitely going to write this book.

A Sterkarm Kiss

How much historical truth is there in the book?

Well, I wouldn't like anyone to use it as a text-book. The border between Scotland and England was a dangerous, lawless place for three or four hundred years, and the 'riding-families' or reivers did exist. My description of their way of life is, I think, fairly accurate, but I used my imagination a lot too. The book is fiction, not history.

One historical family, the Kerrs, (pronounced 'Cars') really were supposed to have a greater than usual number of left-handed people among them— and the winding-stairs in their towers were supposed to wind the opposite way to everyone else's, so they could be defended by a left-handed swordsman. I took this legend and gave it to my Sterkarms. 

The Sterkarms are loosely— very loosely— based on the historical Armstrong family, who were possibly the most notorious of the reivers. But I translated 'Armstrong' into Danish and made it 'Sterkarm' partly to show that I wasn't writing an historical account, and that the Sterkarms are not meant to be a portrait of the Armstrongs. That said, the Armstrong badge did show a hand holding a dagger. But I invented the detail of the hand being a left hand, and the legend of 'the Sterkarm handshake' is also my invention— and applies only to the Sterkarms! 

In the book I also concentrated on the petty warfare between the raiding families and left out the broader politics of the struggle between England and Scotland, and the way both countries used the reivers. (They both covertly encouraged the raiding across the border, because they were happy to see their enemy's resources occupied). Both countries also recruited the reivers for their endless wars against each other, as the raiding families bred superb light cavalry.

I've got to ask -- how do you pronounce the hero's name 'Per'?

I've been asked that a lot! People also seem to think that I made it up, but I didn't. It's the northern version of 'Peter.' 

I sometimes tell people to pronounce it 'Pear.' That's the easy way out.

But it would be more accurate to imagine that you're a Geordie and are saying 'Peter' while choking off or skipping over the 't' in the middle— 'Pay-er.'

And while we're on the subject, I'm often asked about 'Sterkarm' too. You can say it, 'Stark-arm.' But the Sterkarms would have pronounced it something like: Shtair-r-r-ck--air-r-rm. Roll those 'r's! 

A Sterkarm Tryst

Many people have commented on how vividly you brought the past to life. How did you research it?

Thank you! I did research the subject quite a lot. I recommend an invaluable book, 'The Border Reivers' by Godfrey Watson, which gives lots of information about the reivers' way of life and customs.

 I visited the Border Country, to get an idea of the landscape. But you bring the past to life by injecting personal experience. So, for instance, when writing of rooms lit by wood-fires, I remembered standing by bonfires, and the throat-catching quality of the smoke. I remembered how coal and wood fires tend to roast one side of you while leaving the other cold, and how they dirty everything with smoke. I spent a couple of evenings by candlelight, so that I would know the quality of candlelight, and it reminded me of the smell of a just snuffed candle. I knew that cheap, homemade candles were often made of tallow— mutton fat. So they would smell of burning meat-fat.

I have spent a lot of time trudging across moorland, through rain and mud, ducking under low-growing trees and scrambling over ditches and under fences. I bore that in mind while writing about others doing it, and remembered that it isn't the same as strolling along a pavement.

For many years a hobby of mine was archery— I own a longbow. So when I describe Per and his cousins shooting with longbows, I know exactly how it feels to draw and aim a longbow. I also know that it's nonsense when films show archers releasing bowstrings with almighty twangs, followed by a great whoosh of arrows through the air. Archers spend hours trying to master the proper release of the bowstring— the whole point is NOT to pluck it, not to make a twang. The sound doesn't matter but if a bowstring is plucked, the arrow is deflected and you miss your target. Properly released, a bowstring is almost silent. The arrow, too, is silent as it travels. When it hits target or ground, it makes a quiet 'tuk'.

I've stood near the targets and seen how arrows seem to vanish a few feet after leaving the bow, as they soar into the air, only to reappear again moments before impact. And, after hours of searching for lost arrows, I know only too well how an arrow can skitter into the grass and disappear. These experiences were invaluable when I came to write the scene where Per and his cousins shoot at the 21st Century men. It allowed me to understand what a silent and almost undetectable weapon the longbow could be.

Scores of little details helped me to build up the picture of 16th Century life in the book. I visited Norway, where I saw and tasted the popular 'flat-bread', which is like a circular crispbread. I learned that this used to be made in the farmhouses because it could be stored for ages. It was made round, with a hole in the centre, so that masses of it could be strung on cords and hung from the ceilings— as I describe it in the book. I also visited an old farm museum where I saw outhouses like the ones where the Sterkarms sleep (and bashed my head on several of the low beams). In this museum, and a similar farm museum in Orkney, I tried out the very comfortable old closet beds, with their rope supports and straw-stuffed mattresses. I noticed that every slight movement roused the smell of old, dried grass.

Dinner with the Sterkarms

A lot of people have told me that they enjoyed the scene in Handshake where Windsor is entertained to lunch by the Sterkarms. Well, I ate most of that meal in Norway. I stayed in a family-owned hotel, and the very friendly owner asked me if I would like to try some of the traditional Norwegian dishes that were being served that day for the locals, it being a local festival. I was more than keen. That's how I came to eat a dish of groats served with raw smoked lamb and raw, smoked tongue.

As described in the book, the groats looked like a bowl of wallpaper paste. It's made from very finely ground oats, cooked very slowly with lots and lots of butter. It became a traditional dish because it was something that could be left to simmer all day in the kitchen while everyone worked in the fields to gather the harvest during Norway's brief summer. As I report in the book, though it looked disgusting, it was very tasty. I think I preferred it as a savoury, although it was also served as a pudding, with honey and berries rather than raw meat. 

Haggis: wikimedia, for credit, follow link

 The Sterkarm's main course, the meat-pudding, is, of course, a haggis: a sheep's stomach, stuffed with oats and the sheep's own liver, lungs, heart and kidneys. Except that, this being a special occasion, the Sterkarms have made the haggis from a deer's offal. I have often eaten haggis, with chips, while in Scotland. If you remember not to think too much about what it's made from, it's very tasty. Most of the flavour seems to be sage, anyway.

But that's enough for one month! I'll leave you with your mouths watering over that haggis.

Next month I'll tell you about possibly the most strenuous piece of research I've ever undertaken for a book!

 

Susan Price's website is here...